The Crow of Evangelion
by Traitor of All Traitors
Summary: Before the Second Impact, people used to believe that whenever a person dies, a crow would carry their soul to the realm of the dead. But sometimes, just sometimes, the crow could bring that soul back…to set right to the wrongs that led to their passing. Now, fifteen years after the day half the world went away, a crow has brought back a lost soul…to set the new wrongs right.


Creation began on 06-05-10

Creation ended on 09-10-14

Neon Genesis Evangelion

The Crow of Evangelion

A/N: That Brandon Lee! He made this possible. He lives on forever! For many a good reason, this is manga-based.

He hated the sight of the two graves, feeling responsible for the people buried under the ground. Of all things he hated in his miserable life, Shinji hated the loss of people he had cherished. It reminded him of something his uncle had told him once: A story based on an urban legend about a guy and his girlfriend that were murdered on the night before Halloween somewhere, and a year later, the murderers were killed by somebody with a theme of marking the murders with a sign. He couldn't remember the whole story, only that it felt similar to his current predicament. His father made him murder his own friend, Toji Suzuhara, and later found out that his sister died in the hospital when someone informed her of her brother's death; the doctors had tried to keep her alive for thirty hours, but she just gave up, having lost the will to live. He felt responsible for their deaths, unable to seek any solace from those that remain…and those that remain hadn't tried to seek any solace from him.

Not that he could, even after being in the Eva for thirty days after the Tenth Angel, Zeruel, arrived and was, subsequently, killed off by Unit-01. For thirty whole days, he remained trapped within the very thing he despised for the murder of his friend, and while certain NERV people tried to bring him back, his father had done other things, the ultimate proof that he cared nothing for his own son. Although he saw his mother in the Eva, he began to doubt her beliefs of a world of beginnings and that she'd be watching over him, which was why he still held onto his resignation forms before he went back to deal with the recent Angel that attacked. Even with everything he'd learned, everything he'd discovered, he didn't want to be a part of the madness any longer. If piloting the Eva, his mother's work, meant taking more lives than one that had been taken using his hands, then he was better off dead or out of this city, just like every other person that had abandoned it in favor of safer places.

"I hope I can be forgiven when I die," he told Toji's tombstone before setting the bouquet of flowers down in front of it. "Goodbye."

As he set off to leave the cemetery, he stopped at the sound of wings fluttering, turned around, and saw something that was most unusual for him: It was some sort of large, black bird. He'd never seen any other birds aside from Pen-Pen, and this bird had just so happened to perch itself on Toji's tombstone. It pecked at the tombstone and then looked at him, cawing. Before he did anything in front of it aside from breathing and staring, it took flight again.

_I guess the bird hated me, as well,_ he thought, and left the cemetery to return to Misato's so he could rest up for his trip out of the city tomorrow. "I'll ask Misato if she knows what that bird was that I saw back there."

As he left, the bird came back to Toji's tombstone and perched atop it. Rain suddenly came about and the ground became slippery, muddy and cold. The bird cawed again, but not to anybody present. It sounded as though it were calling someone. The ground made a rumbling sound and the bird pecked the tombstone again, chipping off tiny, wet pieces as the sound grew louder.

Crack! Something underneath broke in half and the ground rose as if being pushed up from beneath by something…or someone.

-x-

"…Misato, what do you know about black birds?" Shinji asked Misato, seeing her sitting at the kitchen table, drinking a can of coffee instead of a can of beer.

She looked at him and responded, "Black birds?"

"Today, at the cemetery, I saw a black bird."

"The only black birds that I know of are crows."

"Crows?"

"They're also known as ravens, commonly known for inhabiting gardens and perching atop scarecrows. There's even a story about them on a fairy tale/urban myth basis. It states that in a different time, people once believed that when a person dies, a crow carries their soul to the land of the dead. But sometimes, a terrible sadness is carried with it, and the soul cannot rest."

"That's a sad story."

"It gets weirder, because the story also states that sometimes, but just sometimes, the crow is, somehow, able to bring that soul back and put the wrong things right."

"Bring the soul back?"

"That's what I heard. I don't understand it, either."

"So, the bird I saw was a crow, then?"

"It's likely, but that would be odd because they shouldn't exist anywhere in Japan after the Second Impact; the waves had taken many coastal cities where they were mostly seen."

-x-

CAW! The black bird had cawed, watching the young man climb out of the ground and rise to his feet.

"Aaaaurgh!" The young man cried out in agony, convulsing as the rainwater washed away the dirt on his clothes, which consisted on just one thing: It looked like a diving suit with an apparatus of some sort attached to the front and back of the torso area, all colored in black. "Aaaaurgh!"

Climbing back to his feet, he looked up and saw the bird perched atop the tombstone, looking at him, as if interested. He raised his right arm to his head, slowly staggering out of the cemetery and into the city.

_Where am I? _He wondered, wandering through a back alley as he headed toward a location he hadn't been to in a while. _What happened to me? Why does my arm and leg hurt so much when I think about them? Why does my whole body hurt?_

Reaching an apartment building and staggering up the stairs, he found the bird had perched right in front of the door he was intending to enter through.

Caw! It cawed again, waddling away from the door so that he could enter.

Feeling no sense of hostility or negativity from the bird, the young man opened the door and stepped into the apartment. It was empty; no one was around, but everything else was left exactly as it was before he had left it that one day nobody ever knew that he wasn't coming back. But he came back, feeling an intense pain in his heart.

"Mari?" He called out, stepping into a bedroom that looked as though it belonged to a little girl: There were few stuffed animals and dolls lying around and an opened closet that contained dresses. "It's me, your big brother, Toji. I'm back."

He walked out and toward his own room, which looked worse for wear: Piles of dirty clothes scattered around the floor, books cluttered on a work desk, a basketball set atop said books, and the futon unkempt. It was, basically, an utter pigsty for a school jock. He sat by his desk and found himself recalling things that had transpired more than a month ago; things that he'd forgotten or had no knowledge of.

"_I can't fight the enemy so long as my friend's in there,"_ he heard the voice of a boy, Shinji, say, as if being strangled.

"_The pilot's life is forfeit," _another voice, old and cold, had responded, _"if you don't fight, you'll die."_

"_Better than to attack my friend!"_

"_Dammit! Cut the synchronization between Unit-01 and the pilot. Activate the Dummy Plug."_

"_But, Sir, the Dummy Plug is still in the experimental stages and Dr. Akagi isn't here," _he heard a young lady's voice, as if fearful of what could happen if such an order was carried out.

"_It's still better than the current pilot! Do it!"_ The old man ordered her…and she obliged.

Toji's face had a complete blank expression; he had just seen everything that led up to his death happen, and the only problem with it was that he was murdered by his friend against his own will by his father, who demonstrated unkindness and was willing to let him die to satisfy himself. In a cruel-but-justified way, it wasn't even Shinji that ended him; it was his father, the girl that carried out his order, Dr. Akagi and whoever else was responsible. The pain he was feeling in his mind was more intense now that he lost all other forms of sensation from his body.

"Grrrrruagh!" He groaned as he punched the wall in front of his desk. "They killed me! They killed me! They took my future from me!"

Caw! The bird that had been, seemingly, following him around, was suddenly in his room, perched atop his futon, looking at him as if trying to say something to him. Caw!

Somehow, in some way, Toji could hear words coming from the bird.

_I'm a crow,_ the voice told him. _I'm your crow, meant to guide you on your path to vengeance and redemption, to right the wrongs that led to your death. You have been endowed with great power to aid you in your quest to seek out the ones responsible. Do you accept the task of gaining justice…or will you wallow in your misery at the life you lost and can never go back to? What are you going to do about your current predicament? Those are the only two choices. There are no alternatives._

That's when Toji decided that it was time to stop moping and start doing. He grabbed his desk and knocked it aside, breaking it. Going over to his closet, he looked for a pair of clean pants and found his other track clothes that he never wore, putting those on; he didn't bother to take the plugsuit he was wearing, buried with, apparently, off. Finding an extra pair of shoes, he put those on, as well, and then went to his sister's room to find her bag of makeup that their mother had left her for when she got older; he took a container of powder and smeared it over his face and colored his eyes and mouth with black lipstick, obscuring his identity, which seemed to make no sense to anyone but the crow and himself. The makeup was meant to prevent people that knew his face from making any connection, whatsoever, to who he was and who he used to be…should they ever see him again.

CLASH! A bolt of lightning flashed out the window and lit up his ghost-white face, revealing vertical, scar-like lines over the eyes and a horizontal line on the mouth, like a clown or jester wearing makeup to entertain people at the circus.

"It's time to go hunting," Toji uttered, leaving his old home, and all the memories he once had there, behind for good.

_And I'll be with you, every step of the way,_ his crow told him, now perched atop his right shoulder as they disappeared into the night.

-x-

Maya Ibuki wasn't one to believe in luck. It was the first day off she had gotten in a long time, and she wastes it buying groceries, even though she's hardly at home nowadays. While she felt happy at being able to shop at the local convenience store, the back of her brain was still edgy on what the rest of NERV was going to do since their star pilot had called it quits again after he found out that someone from NERV had blurted out that the former Fourth Child's sister had died in the hospital; it wasn't really anyone's fault to her. They were in a war for their survival, and people died left and right.

_But he questions everything,_ she thought, referring to Shinji, who questioned all that they had done after the death of his friend. _He asked everyone how many people have to die to save the world. Nobody would answer, probably because they had no answer._

The rain didn't let up much, even as she left the store. While the whole of Japan was left in perpetual summer due to the loss of the other seasons, the people were lucky to have been blessed with some rain caused by the intense heat waves elsewhere. The rain also dealt with the noisy cicadas that were present around the city.

_It shouldn't be long before the Dummy System's completely operational,_ she thought again, and was then surprised by the presence of a crow perching on a garbage can, staring at her.

Caw! It cawed at her, as if angry with her, making her walk away into an alley that would lead her to the opposite end of the city block she was on. The crow flew up high into the air, over the buildings where Toji had waited for it, and it lead him to where the woman was going.

_I've never felt so alive when I run,_ he thought, the experiences of being a jock carried on with him in this new life that he now possessed for a short time, running over the rooftops as he followed the crow, the rain unable to make him slip, fall and hurt himself. It was as if the rain was just a background of a stage set and he was the only thing real. He jumped over one roof to the next, and it felt good to him, so he jumped higher to the next one, and it felt greater than the last. When he reached the last roof, his crow looked over at him, and to his greatest surprise, he could see himself staring at it.

_We are one in this way,_ the crow told him. _My eyes are your eyes. Whatever that I see…is what you're able to see, allowing you to observe many things from different angles. Watch._

It flew down to a trashcan where it saw Ms. Ibuki walking to the opposite end of the alley, and its eyes gazed on at her. Once Toji saw this, he ran toward the other end of the roof and threw himself downward to the ground.

CRASH! He landed on some garbage, but was amazed at the fact that neither the fall nor the impact had harmed him in any way. He felt invincible.

"Ha-ha-ha-ha!" He laughed.

Maya stopped walking, hearing the laughter of a young man, and questioned who was there.

"Hello?" She called, and Toji stepped out of the shadows, but she didn't know who he was because of the paint of his face. "Uh, I don't have any money left on me."

"What makes you think I want money?" He asked her, and she could've sworn that she heard that voice somewhere. "Aaaurgh!"

He leapt at her and forced her to drop her bag of groceries, threw her against the walls and onto the garbage as the crow watched him vent out a quarter of his rage against the woman that was, like one of his friends, indirectly responsible for his death, but she was closer on the scale of being directly responsible like the others they would be looking for.

"Fuck! You murderess!" He yelled at her, grabbing her by her collar.

"I didn't murder anybody," she told him. "I don't even know you! What do you want from me?"

"I want you to tell me a story," he answered, "about two boys and a pair of armored monsters from over a month ago, outside of Tokyo-3's boundaries."

"What? I don't know what you're…"

"Sure, you do. One of their last names was Suzuhara. Your people picked him for a workout that led to a tormenting ruination."

"I don't know anybody by that last name, sir. I…"

"Listen!" He yelled at her. "If you don't remember him, then, surely, you remember the Dummy Plug that laid the finishing touches of his demise that day."

As he spoke, flashbacks of his murder came in his head again.

"You were told by a bastard by the name of Gendo Ikari to take control from Shinji because he wouldn't fight the abomination that held his friend inside itself against his will, even if it meant the end of everyone else."

FLASH! The memory of the purple Eva being under control of the Dummy Plug and ripping the black Eva to pieces made itself known to them.

"You let the purple one rip him to bits."

FLASH! The memory of the plug in Unit-01's hand, intact and containing his conscious and then-alive self, before it was crushed by an unfeeling demon made itself known to them.

"You let it crush him to death!"

Maya could remember that as clearly as the previous day, but felt that if NERV hadn't done what they did, everyone would've paid the ultimate price.

"What does one boy's death matter to you, anyway?" She asked him, and he brought her face up to his.

"You and your puppet masters cost some people the lives of a simple school jock and his only sister. What does it matter to me? EVERYTHING! Everything about it matters to me!" He told her, and then threw her against the walls again, bruising her and leaving a broken nose and bloody gash on her forehead. "If you were directly responsible, I'd end you. But you're only indirectly responsible, so you can keep your life, however much of it you have left. But you only have one chance to live from this encounter with me."

Spitting out the blood from her mouth, Maya looked at him with fear and begged, "Please. Take whatever you want from me, but please, don't kill me."

"I'm not gonna kill you, but you are going to tell me who's responsible for the cause of the murder; the ones that are directly responsible, and I want the truth. The truth, woman," he told her.

"It was…it was Commander Ikari and Dr. Akagi. Gendo Ikari and Ritsuko Akagi, respectively; she had designed the Dummy Plug as a remote-controlled operating system for the Evas in case the pilots were incapacitated…and he authorized the activation of it, despite the flaws that were still in it." She confessed to him, and he got a better clarity of the two: He could see Gendo as an older version of Shinji that was cold, ruthless and heartless, wearing orange-tinted glasses that hid his cold eyes and a black jumper with gloves that hid scarred palms; Ritsuko Akagi was the same faux-blond-haired woman with the mole on her face that seemed to need a tan badly and a better life than one of science and nerd-like variables or whatnot.

It sickened him that they had caused his death, not the Angel that had possessed the Eva he was in or Shinji, who never wanted his death, even when he had been mean to him in the beginning because his sister was hurt and he blamed her for her injuries that kept her in the hospital.

"A pair of old, lifeless scientists," he shouted, punching holes into the wall opposite of the one Maya was against, frightening her, "with heartless ambitions and soulless motivations!"

"Aaaugh! Aaahh!" She cried out in fear, thinking he was going to hurt her.

When he was through punching holes into the concrete wall, he looked at her and said, "I got a job for you, lady."

She looked up at him, and saw him drop three different photographs in front of her. They were of Shinji, the former Fourth Child, and a little girl.

"These three people…are lives," he uttered, "lives that your people helped destroy. Your sole job from me is to tell your superiors, the ones responsible, that death is coming for them. In due time! Let them know that Toji Suzuhara sends his regards."

He then walked away from her, disappearing into the rainy night again. The crow followed suit, flying over towards Maya and scaring her to the point of tears as it left. She was left crying from the intense fear the two had inflicted upon her with the recollection and revelation of what had been done over a month ago…and her groceries remain ignored.

-x-

Sleep eluded Shinji once more, and it wasn't because Asuka had been cruel to him again when she found out he was leaving, but the fact that he made the mistake of trying to talk to Hikari about what had happened to Toji. It was only two hours ago into the night that he got the courage to try and call her house, only to be kindly turned down an opportunity to even apologize for what had happened by Hikari herself; she had been completely depressed that even hearing his name or his voice made her angry to the point that she didn't want to be in his presence. She had even told him not to call her again before hanging up on his face. Shinji felt alone; he had pretty much lost all of his friends ever since he got here, either through the Evas or the Angels, and it deprived him of any small happiness.

"…What?!" He heard Misato's voice outside his room, and got up to see what was going on. "When did this happen?!"

"Misato?" He asked, seeing her hanging up the cordless phone and put on her red jacket. "Is something wrong, Misato?"

"Section Two called in and found Lt. Ibuki in an alley, suffering from trauma and a few bruises," she told him, picking up her keys. "I should be back in a few hours."

She then left, before he could even question her of why she would bother to tell him when he'd be leaving tomorrow.

_I don't know why I even tried to ask,_ he thought as he returned to his room.

-x-

"…I was attacked by a kid with an attitude!" Maya told the doctors, still suffering from the post-traumatic stress of her assault by the mysterious man that was angry for the deaths of two people. "He had a black bird with him and he could've nearly killed me if he wanted to!"

When Misato and Ritsuko arrived to the room Maya was placed in, they were surprised to find the young woman shouting at the top of her lungs instead of simply being quiet, as she always was.

"Was there anything about the man that was recognizable when you looked at him?" The doctor assigned to her asked, writing everything down to make sure he got all the facts straight.

"His face was painted up black and white, like a clown or something," she told him, and then recalled part of his wardrobe when she was attacked by him. "He looked like he was wearing…a plugsuit, like the one the Fourth Child wore before he died. But it was kept hidden by black clothing, like he was a school jock."

Then, Misato recalled that Toji was the only person she'd seen that wore black clothing like a jock.

"And you said he had a black bird with him?" The doctor asked.

"Yes, it nearly pecked and clawed my face when it flew past me," she told him. "He told me to tell Dr. Akagi and Commander Ikari…that death was coming for them in due time, whatever that meant."

"That death was coming for me?" Ritsuko asked, making sure that she heard right; she had never seen or heard of people that held a grudge against her for undisclosed reasons or whatever they were angry about that they wanted to hurt her or worse.

"Well, I don't know much about Ritsuko," said Misato, "but Commander Ikari isn't well-liked for his personality anywhere else, so it'd be normal for somebody to want to get rid of him."

"…Suzuhara," Maya had uttered, catching the purple-haired woman's attention.

"Excuse me?" She asked her.

"The guy that attacked me," she explained. "He said his name…was Toji Suzuhara."

This made Misato's heart stop for a moment. It was impossible, since Toji Suzuhara was…six feet underground in a cemetery.

"Okay, this guy calls himself Toji Suzuhara, a name that belonged to the former Fourth Child, and he just happens to let you live when you say that he could've killed you?" The doctor asked again.

"Yes!" She told him. "He could've killed me…but he wasn't going to! He told me I was only indirectly responsible for the pilot's death, and that he was after the people directly responsible! He's after Dr. Akagi and Commander Ikari! It's them that he's going to kill!"

-x-

"I'm sorry, people, but due to the rain, all train lines have been temporarily shut down," a woman told the people that were there, which made Shinji upset at staying in Tokyo-3 longer.

He had already packed his bags and was ready to get away from the troubles of other people he could no longer associate with. He even had gathered up the courage to call his aunt and uncle that never bothered to call to make sure he arrived to the city or even to see how he was doing; they weren't surprised that he'd called them to let them know he was coming back and that things with his father were nothing short of awful. It was like they knew he'd call so they made it no point to call him to begin with. But he didn't care about that. Leaving the city had been his only priority.

Except now that the trains were shut down due to the rain, he had to endure the city a while longer, and that meant more physical and verbal abuse from Asuka, who just wouldn't let up with her personality, and not only that, but more unwanted isolation from Kensuke and Hikari. If only he had just one friend that wasn't from the result of piloting the Eva, if just one person actually liked him for himself and not what he was capable of doing. He questioned the possibility of his whole life meant for nothing but the thing and the people that ruined it. Was his very reason for living just to be a tool by others?

Caw! His train of thoughts was broken by the sound of that same bird he had seen at the cemetery, the very same bird that sparked his curiosity about it. Caw! It had perched itself atop a streetlight and looked down at him, simply watching as he looked up at it.

_Why is it following me?_ Shinji thought, suspecting the crow was some sort of stalker, not knowing that in the process of thinking, he had walked into traffic.

Honk, honk! The sound of a car caught his attention and he looked toward a yellow car and saw that it was speeding his way.

From out of the shadows, a figure in black jumped and grabbed Shinji, pulling him to the safety of the sidewalk, away from the speeding car as it past them.

"You didn't even slow down, you jerk!" Shinji shouted at the driver, not caring that they couldn't hear his anger.

"They couldn't have stopped on that wet road at that speed," the person that saved him said, looking away from his perception.

"Thank you, sir," Shinji praised him, but felt that this man seemed familiar (the clothes were black and all), even though he hadn't seen his face yet. "Are… Do I know you from somewhere? Are you…some sort of cop?"

"No, I'm no cop," the man responded, looking his way for a moment before turning away again; only the makeup on his face was partially seen.

"Then what are you, some sort of a clown?"

"Sometimes," he answered him. "Shouldn't you be going home?"

"I would if the trains weren't shut down. I tried to leave the city, like several others, but for different reasons. I lost a friend and everyone else shuns me and I can't seek any solace from them, and this rain doesn't make the pain I have in my heart any better. For once, just once, I wish for there to be some measure of happiness in my life; a hope that I won't be hurting anybody in a bad way because someone else makes me do so, or that people actually want me for me and not because of some purpose that they had intended for me. I can't even stand my parents, anymore; they just use me like a tool. The rain, I mean, it never lets up and never washes away the dirty stains on my hands."

"It can't rain forever, Shinji-San. Or _"It can't rain all the time"_, so says the Class Rep."

It was at that moment that Shinji had recognized the voice of the man, but realized it too late; the man had already disappeared.

"It couldn't be," he told himself, seeing that the crow had also disappeared. "Toji?"

-x-

Misato had arrived home later that day, seeing Shinji feeding Pen-Pen his can of sardines, and wondered why he was still here instead of on a train heading back to his aunt and uncle's.

"You changed your mind again?" She asked him.

"No," he told her, not looking her way. "The trains were shut down due to the rain. How's Ms. Ibuki?"

Misato paused at that question. It wasn't that she wanted to lie to him, but to tell him that Maya was being sedated for a while as the rest of NERV was contemplating as to whether what she had informed them of was true or false, that a person supposedly brought back to life was after two NERV individuals responsible for his death, wasn't something she wanted to speak of to him.

"She's in recovery," she told him instead; that wasn't a lie, but more of a half-truth; Maya was in the hospital recovering after all. "She was stressed out when she was brought in."

Taking her jacket off, she proceeded to her room, but Shinji stopped her when he asked, "Misato, when people die, they don't really just come back, like their deaths never happened, do they?"

The purple head got curious and asked, "Are you referring to anyone in particular?"

Shinji sighed and answered, "You'd probably just think I'm nuts. I asked Asuka the same question and, like always, she yells at me and says I ask the dumbest of things. I even had the balls to ask her why she pilots the… Why she does what she does when she's not in school or at her friend's house or even playing at an arcade."

He then went to his room and shut the door, not wanting to talk about his question; it was the only curious thing he had today, and after nearly getting run over was the cause of the question when some strange guy saves his hide.

Misato looked down at Pen-Pen, who looked up at her, and asked him, "Has he been like this since he came back?"

The penguin nodded in the positive.

-x-

The rain never bothered Kensuke; it just made his war games more realistic and whatnot. Playing in the rain helped to get away from all the problems at home and school; the war games helped to drown out the sad words of Hikari when she found out what happened to Toji; the rain helped to distance himself away from Shinji, fearing for his own life if that boy could end one he knew for years. If being friends with that Ikari boy meant losing people, it was better to have left him alone. He didn't even have aspirations to be an Eva pilot, anymore.

"Bang, bang, bang," he went, imitating the sound of bullets being fired as he aimed his authentic toy rifle at a tree with a target sign stuck to its trunk. "You're dead, general. Now, to all the other wimps, who else want some?"

Caw! He turned to face his tent, seeing a bird waddling around his campfire that was cooking his meal.

_Is that a crow?_ He thought, having read up on some birds, but he never saw one like this before._ But they should be all but extinct. There's very few of them left._

As he slowly approached the bird, he didn't notice the reanimated boy right behind him; Toji, seeing him through the crow's eyes, placed an arm on Kensuke's shoulder and went, "Is this your way of grieving, Kensuke?"

"Aaaahh!" Kensuke gasped, falling to the ground and seeing the boy; due to the makeup on him, Kensuke couldn't recognize his dead friend. "Who are you and what do you want from me?"

"I want to know why nobody's taking time to help Shinji grieve over what was never his fault to begin with," Toji told him, and the crow flew to perch on his right shoulder. "Don't you know what happened that day the Angel before the last Angel was defeated?"

"Yeah, Shinji killed one of my only friends and sugarcoats his would-be guilt by pretending it wasn't his fault and seeks comfort from those left alive."

"For a military otaku, you're not at all bright as you once were. Shinji's not responsible for what happened that day; his heartless father used his hands to take the life of your friend, caring not an ounce for the pain he inflicted on him."

"And how would you know that? For all I know, you could be making this up."

"Look me in the face and tell me I'm a liar," Toji responded, glaring down at him.

Kensuke looked him in the face, still unable to recognize him because of the makeup, and saw vast images that didn't add up at all to what he had heard about: He saw Shinji pounding on his plug's controls, Unit-03 behaving similar to an Angel, Gendo ordering the activation of a remote control system that overrode control of Unit-01 from Shinji, and the crushed plug that had Toji still inside it. But that wasn't all he saw; he also saw Toji climbing out of a hole in the rainy night.

"Who…who are you?" He asked him.

"I am who I was…and was who I am," he spoke in riddles. "I believe you owe a young man tormented by many a renewed friendship that has no price, agenda or sick cruelty…and let him know that in the future, things will get better for him and others that have suffered because of NERV."

Then, he walked away, the crow flying off, disappearing from sight.

"Oh, God," Kensuke went, unable to believe this all. "He couldn't be him; he's dead and buried."

Gathering his things, he ran off back to the city to see Shinji.

-x-

"…This isn't normal," said Fuyutsuki to two Section Two agents, examining the grave of Toji Suzuhara; he had been disturbed by the empty hole and looks of how it became so. _It's almost as if…something forced its way out of the grave._

In the meantime, while the rain was light, like a misty shower, Shinji had decided to shop at the grocery store again, since Misato didn't have the time to due to being at NERV. If he was going to wait for the trains to run again so he could leave and be far away from the war as possible, he might as well be constructive with his time; it was anything necessary to avoid the life of Eva again.

"…So my husband and I are taking the kids and leaving once the trains start running again," he heard the gossiping people speak up around him. "We feel that this city's just not safe. Not that it was ever safe to begin with."

_They're right,_ he thought, now purchasing his groceries and leaving the store. _Tokyo-3's never been safe to begin with. If anything, it's just a danger magnet used to attract the Angels._

"…Shinji!" He stopped at the sound of his name being used by somebody. "Shinji!"

It was Kensuke Aida, running down the sidewalk to where he stood, stopped in front of him to catch his breath from all the running he did while looking for him.

"Kensuke?" He asked, wondering why the military otaku was here. "Yeah?"

Once he caught his breath, Kensuke told Shinji, "Look, man, I…I'm sorry for shunning you after he was killed."

Now curious, Shinji asked him, "Are you on drugs, Kensuke?"

"No, I just had a revelation from somebody I'm not sure I'd recognize because of his face."

"His face?"

"Well, I recognized the clothes being like those of a jock's, and his voice; he sounded like someone that's been gone for a while."

"Then…you've seen him, too?"

"I saw somebody."

"Yeah, me, too. Well, I forgive you. Thank you."

They walked toward Misato's apartment building to get out of the rain and saw Hikari there, protected by an umbrella and accompanied by Asuka.

"Shinji," went Asuka, once again making no effort to hide her dislike of the boy, "just the man that Hikari needed to see."

"Me?" Shinji asked, recalling the last time he tried to speak with her; it had only ended in more agony.

"Yes, you," Hikari told him. "My father told me to come apologize for my behavior when you called me yesterday. I am sorry."

Shinji exhaled and told her, "It's okay, really."

"So, the trains couldn't go anywhere," she asked, hoping that he was just trying to stay and do some good, "or did you have a change of heart…again?"

"The trains were delayed on account of the rain," he answered her, "so I'll be around for a while longer. Uh, have you seen anyone strange in the last few days?"

"Oh, how strange?"

"We've both seen some guy dressed in black with a familiar voice long gone," said Kensuke to her. "Earlier, after he left the train station, Shinji almost got run over by a passing car, but was saved by someone fitting said description, told him what you used to say: _"It can't rain all the time"_. I was out in the wilderness playing war and he shows up talking to me, telling me to see Shinji and renew the friendship and trust. We think he's for real, even when we saw the grave."

"What grave?" Asuka asked, wanting in on the conversation, but Hikari simply said that she needed to go home and perform her chores; she used a lie that her room was unkempt, and Asuka and she had just come from her house not too long ago.

-x-

Misato really wasn't one for working night shifts…or losing to a bet that required her to go to the store and pick up some coffee packs for the rest of the NERV staff. And she certainly wasn't the least bit happy about her orders. Gendo had insisted that Ms. Ibuki be kept confined in the hospital and evaluated thoroughly until her sanity was confirmed, and for everyone that heard from her about what was revealed to forget about it; Misato believed that Gendo didn't wish to believe that it was potentially possible for a fourteen-year-old boy that had died in the line of duty had come back from death and swore a vendetta upon him and Ritsuko.

_I don't even believe it to be true,_ she thought, leaving the store with her coffee purchases and getting into her car. _There's no concrete evidence that he's even around, anymore._

As she made the drive back to NERV HQ, she came across a scene that caught her attention: A beat-down involving some thugs and a boy in black, but what really caught her interest was that there was a black bird watching from the safety of a streetlight. She stopped the car and went over to stop the fight, which she suspected was started by the thugs…but finished by the boy in black.

"Don't move!" She told him, taking her gun out and pointing it at his face, which was covered in paint or makeup, looking like a clown. "Wait a minute! Don't move!"

Looking at her, the boy said, "You're not a cop…and the last time I checked, the cops always said 'freeze' to their enemies."

"Well, I'm still an authority figure, and I say 'don't move'. I'm serious. You move and you're dead, pretty boy in black." She told him.

Raising his hands up, he responded, "Then I say I'm dead…and I move."

Looking at the defeated thugs around them, she was wondering how strong this kid was to have beaten up thugs that made a living off of hurting others. When she looked back up at him, she backed away; he had placed himself too close in front of the barrel of her gun.

"What are you, high?! Walking into a gun like that?!" She questioned.

"Shoot me if you will…Misato Katsuragi," he told her.

"How do know my name?"

"What, you mean you don't recognize me? How about Mari Suzuhara, do you know her?"

"Mari Suzuhara's dead, man."

That made the boy's eyes widen as she lowered her gun.

"Now, we're just gonna wait for the cops to arrive," she told him. "This is getting too weird for me."

"Oh," he went, sitting down on the ground, coming over what was probably his initial shock, "it gets even better. You know a woman named Ritsuko Akagi? She's got an assistant that shouldn't have followed an order that had severe repercussions. You play any sports?"

"You…YOU'RE the guy that injured Maya Ibuki," Misato realized. "Are you really him? You can't be him, you were killed."

"Maya Ibuki…Maya Ibuki… She was already injured. She suffered over a month ago…the moment she made the worst mistake of her career…and her life. But what happened to her, just like what happened to these fools, is nothing compared to what's in store for those that are responsible. The ones responsible are all going to realize that they're already dead. They're dead, marked for pain…and they just don't know it yet." The boy told her.

Caw! The bird cawed and Misato looked up at it as it flapped its wings and flew away.

"What in the name of…" She went, and the boy got up and left. "Hey!"

She looked around, but saw no trace of the teen; he'd simply vanished, leaving her alone with the injured thugs.

"Oh, great," she sighed. "You catch a kid looking like a cross between a school jock and a mime from Hell…and you lose him out in the open. Well, at least he didn't…do that…walking against the wind crud. I hate that a lot."

Getting back to her car, she couldn't believe the thought of reporting it to Commander Ikari; the old man would've simply dismissed it as nothing…and he was marked as one of the two people responsible for the death of the Fourth Child.

-x-

Looking through some old records belonging to her father, Hikari was trying to confirm if what she used to say in class during rainy days was being used by someone else; they could've easily had the same sources as she did, but that might've been impossible for her father's music records were one of a kind these days and he was the only one she knew of that kept an old record player. When she found the old record she was looking for, she set in up and played the music to find what she was hoping to hear. This song belonging to a man that died before the Second Impact even occurred years ago.

_I want to believe that this is waste of my time, but I have to know for sure,_ she thought, unable to think of anything else until she confirmed what she had heard.

Caw! Her attention on the record player was broken by the sound of an animal. She turned to the living room window and saw a black bird perched on the windowsill of the open window, looking at her with eyes that were almost hypnotic. Caw.

"Oh? How are you this evening?" She asked it. "Are you lost or hungry?"

The bird didn't say anything in response, and flew away the moment she got close enough to watch it take off. Then her attention returned to the record player; the record having become stuck in a loop of the lyrics she had been searching for.

"…Can't rain all the time…can't rain all the time…can't rain all the time…" The record player repeated, causing the young girl to consider that what she heard from the military otaku to be genuine…and she used to tell Toji that on a rainy day, as well.

"But…it can't be," she uttered. "He's gone."

-x-

_ I don't see what the entire point was of having me fly over to her house to look at her for you,_ the crow told Toji, as the reanimated boy sat down on a bench on a hill that overlooked the remains of the so-called fortress city.

"I just wanted to know if she was doing alright," he told the magical crow. "I just wanted to know if she had moved on with her life."

_She's still grieving for you,_ the crow told him. _She blames Shinji for your death. She doesn't know that it wasn't his fault._

"I hope she'll realize, in due time, that she's been blaming the wrong person."

_She will. She'll have to if she hopes to move on._

"Say, have there been…others with my… Well, others that have ended up like me?"

_Many have…over the ages. The last one before you was a young musician. He was known as Eric Draven, and he sought revenge for the murder of himself and his wife-to-be, Shelly Webster._

"Did he get the ones responsible for their deaths?"

_All four of them and more; he added many criminals and the man that caused the instigation of their murders to begin with._

"Incredible. That's…that's really amazing."

_But I wasn't the only crow with the ability to bring back the dead to avenge themselves for their unjustified murders. There were other crows… We each had the ability to bring the soul of a departed back to set the wrongs right. Now, I might be the only one left._

"It must be terrible being alone."

_It is. It really is._

Then, when the thought came to mind, Toji got up off the bench and walked toward the railing that overlooked the quiet and devastated city.

"We'd better go see the good doctor," he told the bird.

_The one that took care of your sister…or the one you must kill to avenge yourself?_

Toji looked at it and sighed, revealing which doctor he had in mind.

-x-

Misato felt she must've been going crazy right now to go about in the middle of the night to see a doctor that still lived in the damaged parts of Tokyo-3 just to make small talk with him about the dead girl's elder brother. But what choice did she have? A dead boy had come back to life and was making plans to kill two people that were responsible for his death and she needed more information on him. All past records of him were inconsistent and people that knew him more so were often people that could be trusted by him.

_I hope he's awake,_ she thought, stopping by the door.

Knock, knock! She knocked several times until a response came. The door opened and a rather-middle-aged man with balding hair and blue eyes answered.

"Can I help you?" He asked, holding what looked like a file in his left hand.

"Um, are you…Ataru Chono, a doctor at the Tokyo-3 General Hospital?" Misato asked him.

"Yes?"

"I'm sorry to be disturbing you at this hour, but I needed to confirm something: Was one of your patients a relative of a one Toji Suzuhara?"

Doctor Chono sighed and recalled the young man that came by the hospital every now and then to see Mari, and nodded that said little girl was indeed a relative of said young man. He invited Misato into his apartment and offered her a cup of coffee.

"I was going over the medical files of my patients that haven't left the city…yet, and then I started looking over Ms. Suzuhara's file, only to be reminded of my failure," he explained his present state.

Suddenly, the window of his living room, which should've been closed, was open, and a breeze slipped in, blowing some papers on his table off onto the floor.

"I thought I had the window closed," he said, as he and Misato gathered the papers up, unaware that a person had entered the room.

"Freeze!" Toji shouted at them, and Misato turned to see…and backed away.

When Dr. Chono looked at him, he immediately recognized the outfit; if he were a few years older, he'd probably suffer a heart attack.

"Suzuhara?" He asked. "It can't be you. I heard from your father that you died, except he wouldn't tell me how."

"So, it's true, then; he is the Fourth Child, brought back to life?" Misato asked the guy.

Toji bowed his head to them and then went to the kitchen refrigerator to grab what he expected to be there: A cold can of beer.

Misato slumped back into her seat as the doctor set his papers down.

"This can't… I mean, he was… Say (she looked up as Toji came back with the can), you…wouldn't, by any chance, be…a ghost?" She asked him.

"Um… Boo?" Toji responded, and then sat down in a chair next to the one the doctor was sitting in after giving her the can. "I'm not sure what I am. Much of my memory is still foggy, especially with my sister, Mari. I need the two of you to tell me what happened to us both."

Misato went first, explaining what had happened during his tenure as an Eva pilot.

"You… Unit-03 was being activated for the first time, and then we found out it had been possessed by an Angel before we could stop it. The other pilots were called to stop it, but things got worse than ever. Shinji didn't want to fight until you were saved from the Angel, but Commander Ikari was more concerned with stopping the Angel, and activated a remote control system that destroyed the Angel…and caused your death."

"And what of my sister, Mari?"

Doctor Chono then uttered, "I was on my break when I got word of her suffering in her room. It was right after she had an unannounced visitor with blond hair leaving. She was crying over your death…and died shortly, afterwards."

Toji looked at him with anger; Ataru was positive that this was the denial part of his grief.

"Hey, you asked," he defended. "Go on, read her file if you want (he got up and grabbed a small stack of papers). Mari Suzuhara held on for thirty hours in intensive care, until, finally, her body just gave up. She lost the will to go on when she found out that you died. I was there when it happened, and I couldn't do anything more for her."

Toji looked at the file but didn't intend on looking through it; the crow had been explaining to him the other gifts he had at his disposal to obtain the justice he was seeking, and, instead, placed his hands on the doctor's face.

FLASH! A little girl, possibly six or seven years of age (judging from looks alone), with short, black hair, screaming and crying in pain and despair for the first hour, then rotating between a pain-filled sleep and heartache for the next twelve hours before succumbing to death in her sleep as a tear fell from her uncovered right eye in the last few hours with Dr. Chono standing in front of her, trying to hold back his own tears.

"Oh!" Toji gasped as he backed away.

"Are you alright?" Misato asked, getting up to try and comfort him, but he kept away from her.

"Don't touch me!" He yelled out, collapsing onto the chair. "Gaaah! I saw her…through your eyes (he turns his head to look back at the doctor). You stayed with her the whole time."

Doctor Chono nodded his head in the positive before saying, "Just so that you know, even before I discovered what happened to you, I was hoping that she'd recover. I see too many kids die in the hospital over one bad thing or another."

"Why didn't you go after the blondie that told Mari I had died?" Toji asked him.

"Do you really think that anybody, especially those that lost relatives to these other attacks that came to the city, would go anywhere near those associated with NERV? Not even your father or grandfather would speak of your deaths or go after the woman, accepting that people die every day. And I couldn't even try after receiving a death threat from NERV, swearing that they would erase me if I tried anything toward them. I don't even trust NERV abusing their authority over some kids that should be spending their days learning how to do better than the people that survived Second Impact, not throwing their lives away for those that don't deserve to live for sins that might've been committed in the past."

Toji sighed in agreement with him; while he hated the concept of children being used to fight a war, he was no example or exception of the concept, anymore. He'd been duped by people that he almost thought he could trust, even if the price he paid was to help his sister recover, and in the end, both of them got nothing in return for their lives. He then looked over at a photograph of what looked like a younger Dr. Chono and a young woman with red hair and purple eyes, smiling as they sat under a shaded tree.

"Is this your wife?" He asked him.

"Late wife," he answered. "She died in the Second Impact aftermath. People were fighting each other over food and clothes, and she was trying to help them."

"It's strange. Even the tiniest of things meant so much to Mari. I used to always think that they were a bit trivial. But believe me. Nothing is trivial."

Misato, having pulled out a cigarette to puff on, was caught by Toji, who took the cigarette from her hands and took a drag on it.

"You really shouldn't smoke these," he told her, giving the cigarette back. "They'll kill you."

As he turned to leave, Misato stopped him, asking, "Are you…going to disappear into thin air again?"

"I thought I'd use the front door, like I used to," he answered her.

"Hey, man," went Dr. Chono, "for whatever it's worth… I am sorry for what happened to both you and your sister."

"Yeah, me, too," he told the doctor and then left out through the front door.

-x-

"Yeah, that's him!" One of the thugs from the other night told Gendo, as they were brought down earlier to NERV HQ to identify the mysterious boy that had assaulted them the previous night, identifying him through a photograph of the Fourth Child.

"But he looked different," said another of the thugs. "He was dressed in black with his face painted up white with black scars, like some kind of dead whore or something."

"Did you check the grave, Fuyutsuki?" Gendo demanded, needing further confirmation.

"It was empty," Fuyutsuki revealed.

"Grave?" The thugs questioned. "What grave are you talking about?"

"But his body was checked for any potential contamination after the Angel was defeated," went Ritsuko, giving her piece of information. "The Fourth Child was clean."

"Then how do you explain an empty grave and these…fools seeing a boy that should be buried in the ground…but isn't?" Gendo asked her.

"Delayed reaction, maybe?" She suggested.

-x-

The Suzuhara apartment seemed totally desolated now that nobody lived there. As Hikari stood outside the front door, she saw how the mail had been piled on the floor, the walls being dusty and the smell of mildew settling in. The house, put quite simply, lacked the touch of a woman's orderly sense.

_I haven't been here in over a year,_ she thought, stepping inside now; it was only a hypothetical possibility, but she didn't suspect Toji to be anywhere else but here, the last place that even she would suspect to find him. "Toji Suzuhara?"

She entered his room, seeing it more trashed than the rest of the house combined. But, and this was because she examined the way the wall was damaged and how some clothes were on the floor, she deduced that this damage could've only occurred recently. This meant that someone was here.

Caw! She turned around and saw the black bird that could've probably been the same one she saw previously at her house. Caw!

"You again?" She questioned the bird. "Do you know where Suzuhara-Kun is?"

Caw! The crow went.

"I wasn't sure when I started feeling affection for him," Hikari went, "but I saw his compassion when he discovered that his sister was injured in the first attack on the city. He'd go to see her at the hospital every chance he got, trying to keep her involved in his life. Then…he went away, taken from this world after it seemed like I was finally able to talk to him. I blamed Shinji Ikari for his departure, even when it was never really his fault; he was just dealt a bad hand that awful day. I just disliked him for his involvement. I miss Suzuhara-Kun. I feel…scattered about the world without his presence. It gets lonely without him causing a problem or just speaking."

Caw.

"I don't even know why I bothered coming here," she then uttered in despair. "I know he's not here. I just… I just wish he was. I never got to know if he cared about me the way I cared about him."

As she turned to leave out the front door, a shadow appeared beside the wall.

"Class Rep.," she heard a familiar voice speak out, "I do care about you."

Turning to face her addressee, her eyes watered up at the sight of the school jock she fell in love with, and ran over to embrace him.

"I've missed you," she told him, feeling his hands make contact with her back and shoulders.

-x-

The rain never seemed to let up, and the local ramen stand was as desolated as the ruins of coastal cities buried underwater. This is where Shinji, Kensuke, Asuka (simply because she had nothing else to do) and Pen-Pen found themselves currently.

"Hey," they turned and saw Hikari, who looked like she'd been in better spirits.

"Hey," they greeted back, and she joined them in eating some ramen.

A blue Renault A310 showed up several minutes later…and Misato greeted them.

"How does Pen-Pen take his ramen?" She asked them, but got no answer. "Fine, don't answer."

"Whenever someone dies, they can't just come back as though they never left, Ms. Katsuragi," Hikari spoke up, "can they?"

Misato sighed, knowing some of where this question of hers was coming from and going to, and responded, "That's what I used to believe…until recently. Are you…referring to anyone in particular?"

"I doubt you'd believe us," went Shinji to her. "You'd probably think we're nuts."

"Well, then, I guess they'll have to lock us all up," she told them, ordering a canned soda.

"Have you seen him, too?" Hikari asked her.

"I saw somebody fitting his description," Misato explained. "Maybe he's your fairy godfather or something of the sort."

"No," she responded. "Toji didn't come back for me. He's here on borrowed time, to settle an unresolved issue that was started by some people that hurt him and his sister. We can't be together because…I'm alive and he's not."

"Did you tell him how you felt about him?" Asuka asked her.

"The feeling was mutual," she answered, and a tear escaped her left eye.

"Do you…need a friend to help you get home?" Shinji offered, and Hikari nodded that she would like that a lot.

-x-

The night grew cold and the rain began to lessen, but not enough to allow the trains to run. On a lonely basketball court, in the presence of the crow, Toji was scoring a few hoops before he set out to finish what he started.

_It's time to go, Suzuhara,_ the crow told his partner, and Toji scored another hoop before turning to face the bird.

"Let's go get retribution and redemption," he responded, and the crow took flight, leaving behind an empty court.

-x-

"…I've gone over the remaining samples of the Angel," went Ritsuko to Gendo and Fuyutsuki in Gendo's office, "and I've found nothing that indicates the Fourth Child was able to come back to life through some delayed reaction. The only way that Angel could've acted up was through an Eva."

"And the grave was thoroughly checked, as well," added Fuyutsuki, who had overseen the series of tests that were done to the exposed burial site. "There was nothing but parched soil and tombstones."

"Then we'll have to question those that had any further contact with the Fourth Child, before and after the Unit-03 incident," Gendo declared; however the dead boy came back, someone had to know something about him, a way to stop him.

-x-

"…I still don't see why we have to go to NERV for late-night synchronization tests," went Asuka to Misato, as she, herself and Shinji (despite his minor protest of having resigned) were in the elevator heading to the NERV labs for the tests.

"Honestly, Asuka," Misato responded, "I don't think Ritsuko wanted us here for any tests at all."

"Then why come at all?" Shinji asked.

"We'll know for sure when we see her."

They vacated the elevator as they reached their stop and walked down the hall toward Central Dogma.

And there Gendo and Ritsuko were, but there was something about the way they were standing around in the room that gave a different impression to why they were all here.

"Commander Ikari," Misato greeted them. "Ritsuko."

"As most of you are aware," Commander Ikari expressed, "NERV has been threatened by a third party that cannot be traced. Therefore, we need to know who and what this culprit is and what his intentions are before we are forced into a corner."

Shinji and Misato then realized that there was no synchronization test at all, and that Gendo and Ritsuko were trying to find out what they could about Toji Suzuhara's revived state…all in order to protect themselves from a death threat made by the deceased boy.

"You mean, the Fourth Child?" Asuka questioned.

"Correct," Gendo answered. "We need to know for sure if this is the same individual behind the threat that was made."

"Toji's dead," went Shinji, unwilling to aid NERV any further. "Killed against his will by my own hands, against my will. When you're dead…you stay dead."

He turned to leave, but was halted by the presence of over a dozen men in black suits.

Apparently, Gendo was so rattled by the threat on his life that he had Section Two running around.

"What's the meaning of this?" Asuka questioned.

"We have reason to believe that the three of you might know something," Ritsuko expressed.

"We don't know a thing," the redhead defended; she might've hated Toji, but she would defend her friend's affections for him. "The stooge is dead."

As she and Shinji made an attempt to walk away, the black suits blocked their way.

Caw! They heard the screeching of a bird and looked up at where Gendo normally sat during Angel invasions, seeing a crow.

"How did that get in here?" Ritsuko questioned.

Caw! It screeched again.

"Hey, Misato," they all turned to the other side of the room and saw Toji stepping out of the shadows, dragging a whimpering Maya Ibuki with him.

"No way!" Asuka gasped, never believing that he was back. "You're dead! You were crushed!"

He stopped a good distance between them all and looked at Maya.

"Tell me now," he spoke to the young Bridge Bunny, "are these two the ones responsible?"

"Yes," she whimpered, indicating that Gendo and Ritsuko were present and accounted for. "That's them. Commander Ikari and Dr. Akagi."

"Thank you. You may go now, Ms. Ibuki." He let her go and she staggered away. "You two are in a storm of mayhem."

"So, then, you're truly him?" Gendo questioned, unsure of how this was possible. "You're the Fourth Child. The late Toji Suzuhara."

"You must be infected due to the Angel contamination," Ritsuko suggested.

"The only thing contaminating me is my overdue debt to remove the ones responsible for causing so much pain and death in such a short time," he expressed, pointing to the faux-blond…and then to Shinji's father with a grim expression beneath his face paint.

"That's a lousy outfit, stooge," went Asuka. "Not too sure about your face, though."

"Cool it, she-beast," he responded to her, still keeping his gaze upon his two targets. "I got nothing against you. I just want them?"

"I'm afraid that's not going to happen," Gendo expressed, and the black suits aimed their guns at him. "Surrender or die."

"Does he speak for each of you?" Toji asked Misato and the others.

"Not for me," answered Shinji.

"Or me," added Misato.

"Same here," added Asuka, and all three backed away.

"Well, Mr. Ikari, Dr. Akagi, you've made your decision," Toji then expressed, leaning against the control console. "Now, let me see you enforce it."

"Terminate him," Gendo ordered, and the black suits opened fire upon him, riddling him with holes.

"No!" Shinji yelled, unable to believe his eyes as his friend fell to the floor.

"Now, we have a specimen," Ritsuko spoke, sounding cold and clinical.

Caw! The crow went, and the black suits gathered around the dead boy. Caw!

Suddenly, as if struck like lightning, Toji jumped up and punched the nearest suit, hitting him so hard that his neck snapped, killing him instantly.

"Gah!" The rest of them gasped, trying to reload their guns.

Toji grabbed the left arm of a suit on his left and took the reloaded gun as his friends and targets fled the room.

BANG! He shot the guy in the face, killing him, and then fired two more bullets at the next two. BANG, BANG!

As they fell, Toji announced, "You're all going to die."

The suits left alive became fearful of this boy, seeing the bullet holes closing in his skin. This kid really couldn't be killed because he was already dead…and walking around.

"I quit!" One of the remaining seven expressed, tossing his gun to the floor. "I have no idea why I'm here. These people are weird."

When Toji took a step forward, the other six got the same idea and tossed their guns to the floor. This was insane, and they all knew it.

-x-

Riding back to the apartment, Misato, Shinji and Asuka wondered if Toji had gotten to Gendo and Ritsuko, avenging himself and his sister.

"I can't believe that just happened," Asuka uttered, looking out the window at the night sky. "They wanted to know what was going on when we barely knew a thing."

"Rits is going to have a lot of explaining to do if I see her again tonight," Misato, reaching the parking lot of their building.

As much as Shinji tried to deal, he couldn't feel concerned for his father's life. He had caused Toji's death, so this was only right that the man pay for his crimes.

"…Shinji?" He heard Misato say to him. "We're here."

"Oh," he sighed.

-x-

"…So, that was the late…Toji Suzuhara," went Fuyutsuki to Gendo and Ritsuko, as they took refuge at his home. "I'm quite surprised that he did come back."

"He'll find us soon," Gendo uttered, stressed; he normally didn't have to worry about anyone trying to kill him, but nobody that was after him came from beyond the grave before. "We need to find a way to dispose of this threat."

"He has power," went Ritsuko, coming up with a theory, "but it may be power that can be taken from him…just like when he was physiologically enhanced."

"I'm starting to think that this boy won't be stopped," Fuyutsuki expressed.

"The Fourth Child didn't show up until after that bird showed up," she explained her theory. "It was a crow, an endangered species, and may serve as a link for him…between the land of the living…and the realm of the dead."

"So…what, if you kill the crow…you defeat the boy?"

"That's the theory."

That's when Gendo got an idea on how to deal with the deceased Fourth Child.

"We'll need the First Child," he revealed.

-x-

The streets were quiet, a clear sign that after the last attack from the Angels, the majority of the city's population had abandoned it in favor of safer locales. Not even the light rain seemed to attract any souls. Just then, amidst the shadows, a lone figure walked down the streets, approaching an apartment building.

Rei Ayanami, the First Child and pilot of the prototype Evangelion known as Unit-00, under orders from Commander Ikari to go to the Horaki family's building to see if Hikari Horaki was there, then report to him with the answer.

Once she reached the floor the family was reported to be living on, she approached the door and ringed the bell.

"Who is it?" A female voice asked.

"I am Rei Ayanami," she answered simply. "Is Hikari Horaki home?"

The door opened and the albino saw the freckled, pig-tailed girl that was the class representative.

"How may I help you, Rei?" Hikari asked.

Then, very unlike herself, Rei uttered to the girl, "Forgive me."

-x-

The night was far more quiet than Shinji remembered, along with the cemetery being empty as it always was.

Caw! He turned towards a tombstone and saw the crow perched atop it.

It was Toji's grave.

"What brings you here this late at night?" He turned around and saw Toji, who looked like his clothes had seen better days than he had.

"You're okay," he told the resurrected boy.

"For the time being," Toji responded.

"Did you…get them?"

"Not yet…but soon."

"Why didn't you try to kill me, Toji?"

"Why kill you?"

"I…"

"It wasn't your choice, Shinji. My blood's on your father's hands. His and that faux-blond woman. They made the instrument of my demise…and it is they that will answer for their crimes, not you."

"It was still my fault for not trying to save you."

"There was nothing you could've done. Some people are colder than they appear to be. Your father's not someone that can ever understand friendship or how far anyone will go to preserve the bonds of it, which makes him a loner…and someone to be pitied because he'll always be alone."

"Thanks."

"Anytime."

Caw! The crow caught their attention again, and Toji sighed.

"You better get home," he told Shinji. "I hope that tonight will be the end of this vendetta soon."

"But…will I see you after you're done?" Shinji asked him.

"Maybe," he suggested. "It'll all depend on what happens later."

The crow took to the air…and Toji had vanished from sight.

-x-

"…Rise and shine, Ms. Horaki," Hikari, barely conscious after hearing a woman speak to her, recalled a man breaking into her home and assaulting her father and elder sister before kidnapping her and her little sister.

Opening her eyes, the girl found herself inside a skyscraper building, one of the only few left intact within the city, and surrounded by a woman with blondish hair, an elderly gentleman that seemed like he'd rather be anywhere else than where he was right now, and a rather grunt of a man that reminded her what Shinji could've been if left alone, which meant that this man had to be his father who abandoned years ago.

"You're him, aren't you?" She asked him. "You're Shinji's father."

"I am," Gendo answered her.

"You're awful," she told him.

"I do what is necessary."

"You're nothing but a monster and a coward pretending to be a big shot."

"I have other concerns."

"You killed Suzuhara, and now he's come back to kill you, to set the wrongs right."

"Then you know something about the Fourth Child?"

"Only that he has a vendetta to settle with the people responsible for his death and the death of his sister, and I'm guessing that you three are responsible."

"Actually," went Fuyutsuki, wanting to straighten out the accusation, "I have nothing to do with Mr. Suzuhara's death or the death of his sister."

"Not now, Fuyutsuki," Gendo hushed him.

Hikari looked beside her and saw that her younger sister, Nozomi, tied up and with a gag around her mouth, oblivious to what was happening around her.

-x-

"…Late this evening, Hikari and Nozomi Horaki were kidnapped from their home by an armed assailant," a news reporter told the people watching the late-night news.

"Oh, my God," went Misato, fearing that Commander Ikari would go this far to protect himself from Suzuhara's vengeance.

-x-

The crow flew high above the lesser buildings and towards the skyscrapers, flying past one and saw a young woman and a little girl bound and gagged, surrounded by three people.

_Oh, no,_ the bird thought, realizing that its reanimated subject would have to protect the girl that fancied him before his death.

SWIFT! Transferring what it saw to the resurrected child, said child, who was on the streets, witnessed what was going on with the Class Rep. and her little sister.

_Oh, Hell, no, _Toji thought, dashing towards the skyscraper's base and entering the lobby. _Class Rep.!_

He entered the building's elevator and went to the penultimate floor and entered the incomplete environment of an unfinished building. The crow perched atop his left shoulder.

"Hmm! Mmmm!" Hikari muffled, seeing Toji take several steps toward her and Nozomi. "Mmm!"

"Stop right there, Fourth Child!" Ritsuko stopped him, stepping out of the shadows and pointing a pistol at Hikari's head. "I will blow her head off if you try anything."

The crow flew off his shoulder and away from the scene to a pipe on the ceiling.

BANG! Someone fired a gun…and shot at the crow.

Caw… It fell to the floor.

Toji looked towards a spot in the shadows…and saw Gendo Ikari step out of said shadows with a smoking gun.

"I believe the phrase you're looking for is," he uttered to him, "caw, caw, bang! Oh, that hurts!"

Toji wasn't amused one bit by his choice of words.

"You'll be dead before the sunrise," he threatened him.

"Not before you're done standing," he responded to the dead boy.

The gunfire was loud enough to wake Nozomi and frighten her.

"Hmm… Mmm…" She muffled.

Caw… The crow cawed, still moving, but it looked like its right wing had been hurt. Caw…

"Time to pay the price," Gendo told Toji, and then shot him in the left shoulder.

Toji wasn't the least bit fearful of being harmed, since he was already dead. However, something was different this time. He felt like he was about to fall, and the bullet hole wasn't closing like the others had earlier. The next thing he knew, his brain registered some mild discomfort.

"Aw, shit," he said, falling to his back.

"Well, well, well," Gendo said to him, balding his left fist. "It would seem that our afterlife has undergone a little shift."

Punch! He struck the dead boy, knocking him back down.

Kick! Then, he kicked him in his side.

"For a ghost, you bleed just fine," he told Toji.

"Mmmm!" Hikari muffled, wanting him to leave Toji alone.

Caw… The crow staggered, forced to hop on its left leg in an attempt to fly into the air.

"The thing's still alive," Ritsuko informed Gendo.

"Kill it," he ordered her.

Ritsuko was about to put the bird out of its misery…until a second elevator came up and revealed Misato, Asuka and Shinji.

-x-

_Redemption_

Shortly after the news had revealed the kidnapping of Hikari and Nozomi, Rei had showed up at the Katsuragi apartment to explain her involvement in the kidnapping in the hopes that the purple-haired major would handle the situation.

She never said anything about earlier, but she had seen Shinji and company with Hikari…even hearing Shinji offer to escort the girl home after hearing some talk about the deceased Fourth Child, who had been confirmed to have returned from death to get revenge for his and his sister's unjustifiable murders.

When the information had been given to the major, Shinji and Asuka about what Commander Ikari had planned to do with the Fourth Child, using Hikari Horaki as bait, she watched them rush to save the girl from an early death.

-x-

"…Misato?" Ritsuko gasped, seeing her friend from college point a gun at her.

"This has gone far enough, Ritsuko," Misato told the faux-blond. "And Commander Ikari… You fear death to the point that you send Rei to the Horaki household to plan a kidnapping attempt? Enough is enough, and this can't go on."

Then, possibly as an attempt to escape, Gendo opened fire upon the purple-haired woman and the pilots before running off.

"Whoa!" Asuka gasped, and she grabbed Shinji and hit the floor.

Misato retaliated and shot back at Gendo, but he had already escaped through a stairway.

Ritsuko, through the commotion, had also fled, and she took Hikari with her.

Fuyutsuki, having disagreed with this plan to deal with the Fourth Child from the start, didn't so much as flee the scene.

"Toji, are you alright?" Shinji asked, helping Toji up.

"I'll be fine," he told him. "Where's the two responsible?"

"They ran down the stairs," Asuka revealed, "and they took Hikari with them."

"Class Rep.? I gotta save her."

"The crow!" Misato went, seeing the black bird before Gendo shot at them, but now it wasn't around. "Where's the crow?"

"They must've took it, too," Shinji suggested.

As Toji took a step toward the door leading to the staircase, he almost fell to the floor if it weren't for Shinji being there to grab him.

"Toji, what's going on with you?" He asked his friend, worried about his injury. "I thought you were…you know, invincible. I saw you recover earlier, and you didn't die."

"The crow was injured, and now my invulnerability's hampered. But I can't let such a hindrance stop me right now. I can't rest until what I came back to do is done."

With some of strength renewed, Toji got back on his feet and ran out the room, in pursuit of his prey and Hikari.

"Toji!" He heard Hikari scream out to him, and he looked up the staircase and saw a door had closed, leading to the top of the building.

He went up the stairs, but was blocked by Ritsuko, who held a gun pointed at him…and had the crow in her possession.

Caw… The crow seemed like it was nowhere near recovered, meaning that if anything more happened to it, Toji would be left without his invulnerability and accelerated healing abilities.

"As a pilot for the Eva, you had power over a clone of a god," the faux-blond expressed, "and things didn't go well for you. And now, whatever power you got after your life was sacrificed for the greater good…belongs to NERV."

Toji glared at her.

"Tell me something, though," he uttered. "Was all that talk about getting my sister better medical care if I decided to be an Eva pilot ever even legit…or was that just a cold-hearted from a cold-hearted woman that caused her death?"

Ritsuko's eyes widened momentarily before returning to her clinical gaze at him, realizing that he was aware of her involvement in his sister's death.

"You were the perfect pawn in the situation we at NERV had," she responded. "You were the only person that could do what we needed…with the proper motivation, of course. _'Use whatever tactics that are necessary'_, that's what I was instructed, so I said only what you wanted to hear as a lure. Of course, if you had survived, NERV would've had to honor their end of the pact. But fortunately, you didn't survive, so we had to remove loose ends."

"She was innocent," Toji's rage, however far from boiling over, was kept in check as he spoke to this revelation. "She never harmed a soul in her life. She was supposed to have a future full of hope, but you took it from her when you told her I was dead. You killed her with false hope…and stole the only family I had left that meant everything to me."

"Greatness requires sacrifice," Ritsuko justified her reasons for doing what she did to the siblings. "I wouldn't expect you to understand. After all…you, like your classmates…were no different from cannon fodder. You were only kept safe until NERV had a use for you…and then cast aside when you couldn't continue to serve a purpose. It's a use or be used type of world."

She then raised her gun at his head. She was going to enjoy dissecting this reanimated corpse later on.

"Tell me one more thing, though," he stopped her, looking down at the floor and the rope that led up to the roof of the building and extended to the very bottom. "What do you knows about eyes and their relation to the soul?"

"Huh? Eyes have always been considered the windows to the soul. But nobody can really see into another's eyes to view their soul. It's just a foolish belief."

"Then I guess this is also true," he said, looking back up at her. "An eye for an eye leaves everyone blind…just like you!"

CAW! The crow, having taken the time to recover from being shot thanks to Toji, escaped from Ritsuko's grasp and flew up into her face, scratching and pecking at her with all its might.

"Aaaaurgh! Aaaahh!" Ritsuko screamed, unable to see anything because of the crow's attack on her.

"Grrrrraaurgh!" Toji charged toward her and grabbed her by her neck, reached for the rope and tied it around her, and then relieved her of the gun. "When you open your eyes in Hell, tell them you were blinded not by the crow, but by your cold-hearted beliefs and ideals!"

"Aaaaaaaahhh!" She screamed as she was thrown over the banister and to her death. "Aaaaahh!"

"Help me, Toji!" He heard Hikari, and ran outside onto the roof, showered by the heavy rain and exposed to the lightning.

Hikari had been dragged over to the edge of the roof by Gendo, who was even hitting her every time she tried to get away.

"Let her go!" Toji demanded of him.

But Gendo threw her over the edge.

"No!"

Luckily, Hikari had landed onto a scaffolding and grabbed onto some cables.

Caw! The crow took flight and flew away from Toji toward Hikari.

Gendo took out his gun and shot at Toji, who was still vulnerable and his healing factor hadn't fully returned to him. He watched as the dead boy staggered as he ran toward him. Then, he picked up a rebar role, swinging it at the boy as though it were a sword.

Toji ducked and evaded each blow from the rebar, but he was starting to slow down. He then jumped to the ground and rolled to where there was another rebar nearby and picked it up.

FLASH! A bolt of lightning struck the rebar and caused several strands of Toji's hair to stand up on their ends.

"Aaaaurgh!" He yelled, more in irritation than pain from the shock.

Gendo swung his rebar pole at Toji, who blocked with his own.

It was now a clashing of steel rods like swords between the hunter and the hunted.

Toji swung his rebar sideways and struck Gendo in his right arm, knocking him aside onto the ground.

"Toji!" Hikari cried out.

"I'm coming!" He responded, running over to the scaffolding and reaching down to her with his left hand. "Take my hand!"

"Urgh!" She strained, reaching up to his hand and grabbing it.

"I got you!" He assured her.

PIERCE! A rebar was thrust into his back and out his chest.

"Aaaaaurgh!" He howled, unintentionally letting Hikari fall back onto the scaffolding…and was then thrown against a pile of wood by Gendo.

The rain had washed away the majority of his face paint, leaving only the dark lines over his eyes that had thinned out.

"If it's any consolation to your grieving soul," he heard Gendo say to him as he was unable to remove the rebar jutting out of his chest. "I had Dr. Akagi go to the hospital and pull the plug on your sister after you were sacrificed. NERV has no need for loose ends, including people that have no use to my organization at all. Nothing happens without my authorization. Your death brought me closer to my goal…just as everyone else that I sacrifice to save myself will bring me closer to my goal."

"What kinda man that was supposed to do right by his kid…instead focuses only on himself?" Toji questioned his immorality.

"I hate God," he answers him. "He took from me my wife, and I want her back. Everyone and everything, including the Third Child, is just a means to an end."

"Shinji never did anything wrong. None of us ever did anything to deserve what we were dealt. And then you go and decide our fates like the monster you are."

"It's a cruel world. Use…or be used."

"You're hopeless, beyond forgiveness. No wonder Shinji hates you so much."

"I could care less for him. After you're gone, I'll dispose of him."

Then…Toji gazed up at Gendo, his face possessing an expression of solemn defeat.

"Then accept this as my parting gift," he uttered to him. "I don't want it, anymore."

GRASP! He grabbed Gendo by his face and rose back up.

FLASH! Gendo saw a little girl in a hospital bed, suffering greatly!

"Aaaurgh!" He groaned.

"My sister suffered for thirty hours in that hospital because of Ritsuko Akagi!" Toji told him, watching as blood began to seep out of his eyes and nose. "This…is the full extent of that suffering! Thirty hours of what my sister had to go through!"

FLASH! Gendo saw doctors doing whatever they could to help the poor girl, but to no avail.

"All at once!"

"Aaaaaurgh! Urgh! Aaaaurgh!"

"And all for you."

When Toji released him from his grasp, Gendo staggered backwards, his face a bloody mess, with blood seeping out his ears, eyes, nose and mouth. The man, groaning from the thirty hours of what Mari Suzuhara had endured before succumbing to her end, had reached the edge of the building that he threw Hikari over…and fell over. But unlike the Horaki girl that landed on the scaffolding, he continued falling.

"Aaaaaaaaaurgh!" He screamed, and his last image was of the little girl passing away in her sleep as a tear escaped her eye.

-x-

Shinji, Asuka, Misato and Fuyutsuki ran out onto the rooftop, just in time to see Gendo fall over, and Toji removing the rebar from his body.

"Toji!" Shinji gasped.

"Hikari," Toji expressed, moving over to the scaffolding where the girl was still holding on. "Help me save her."

Hikari grabbed onto Toji's right hand and was pulled up onto the roof.

"Are you okay?" He asked her as the rain became lighter.

"I'm fine," she told him. "Thank you."

Shinji looked over the ledge and saw that Gendo had reached the streets below, all mangled and everything that would've killed a person younger or older than he had been. He didn't even shed any tears for the loss he had just experienced. No, he had been lost his father, and there were no tears to be shed over a man that had abandoned him, used him, disregarded him, and killed one of his friends. His tears would've been shed for a person that needed to be cherished, but never for a man named Gendo Ikari, father of Shinji Ikari, who had been abandoned long ago.

"Shinji?" Misato asked him.

"We should go now," he responded, showing her that this parental loss wasn't going to put him down.

As they re-entered the building, going down the stairs, they saw Nozomi, who had stayed inside. She was pleased to see her big sister alive and well.

"What happened to the bad man and lady?" She asked, referring to Gendo and Ritsuko.

"They're gone," Hikari answered her, being simple; she didn't want to scar her with the fact that two of their kidnappers were now dead.

"If any of you should see Dr. Chono again," went Toji, "let him know that he was a big help."

"What do you mean?" Misato asked him.

"What he kept up in here (he pointed to his forehead) saved me."

"You mean, what happened to your sister?" Hikari asked him.

"That's right."

When they reached the elevators, Fuyutsuki expressed, "With Gendo gone, NERV's going to need a replacement commander."

"Well, I'm not looking to take over," Misato expressed; Gendo's position as the commander was often spoken of as an omen of negativity.

"What now, Toji?" Hikari asked, but when she turned to face him, the reanimated boy was no longer there with them. "Huh? Where did he go?"

"He does that," Shinji expressed. "He made the people responsible for a lot of personal suffering pay for their sins. Maybe now, he can move on."

They went down the elevator to the first floor as the police (whom Misato had called earlier) arrived. By the time they all stepped outside the building, the rain had stopped, revealing a clearing sky.

"It's about time the rain stopped," Shinji expressed.

"Hey, it can't rain all the time," Hikari told him.

-x-

As the crow landed atop Toji's tombstone, said boy had returned to the cemetery, his face looking worn and deprived of the makeup he had on to hide his identity. The boy fell next to the tombstone, laying against his grave.

"Mari…" He shuddered, feeling like he was close to dying…but too tired to move on.

-x-

"…So, the trains are likely to start running again tomorrow," went Asuka to Shinji, seeing as Hikari and her sister were taken to the hospital after knowing that their father would be okay. "I take it you'll be leaving?"

Shinji looked at her and said, "There's nowhere for me to go outside of the city. My aunt and uncle had never cared much about me, and there's no point in trying to leave if it means going back to relatives that hate your guts."

"Then what will you do?"

"Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki asked me if I would pilot the Eva again if he were left in charge. I was going to refuse, but then he said a person with a conscious and morality is more invaluable than an autopilot system that only takes basic instructions and can't deviate or make moral decisions."

"So what, exactly? He wanted you to pilot the Eva rather than the Dummy System?"

"That's right. But I'd have the right to make my own choices on what I do within the Eva."

"And what was your answer?"

As they walked over to Misato's car, the boy answered, "I told him I would think it over."

"You're an idiot."

"At least I have a conscious."

-x-

Toji felt his life fading from as he thought of his family from when he was younger. His sister had been about a year old, their mother was still alive, and he had just introduced Hikari to Mari. Those were good times back then.

"…Toji?" He looked in front of himself and saw a little girl in a blue dress approaching him, her short hair like his own. "Toji… Big brother."

It was Mari. Or at least her soul in the form of herself before she got hurt during the Third Angel attack. She looked like she'd been freed from all her injuries to be able to walk and move her arms.

"Mari," he greeted her, though his face looked lifeless.

She embraced him, holding him close to herself as she felt his heart stop. It was okay, though; he had been brought back to get justice for himself, her and all of those that were harmed in one way or another, and he got them all justice. Now, he could come back with her to where there was peace for those in need of it.

A swift breeze came…and the Suzuhara siblings were gone, leaving only two graves that they had been buried in. There was no indication that the grave of Toji Suzuhara had ever been disturbed.

Caw! The crow then took flight into the night, just as the sky began to change color.

-x-

Several days went by, and Shinji Ikari, walking into the classroom, greeted Hikari Horaki, who was in the room prepping for the day.

"Hey, Hikari," he said to her.

"Hey, Shinji," she greeted back. "It's been two weeks now. Are you really staying in the city?"

"Yeah," he told her. "How are you doing?"

"My father came home last night after recovering from his injuries. He was considering moving us all out of the city after discovering who the guy that injured him was. But I told him that we shouldn't leave just yet. Now that our kidnappers were brought to justice, there wasn't going to be any further troubles against the family."

"Yes, I've read the news about that. NERV is under new management now that that man is dead."

Hikari respected his unwillingness to address the late Gendo Ikari as his father…just as she wouldn't address the late Ritsuko Akagi as a licensed physician or a scientist. It was still a touchy subject for the both of them.

The teacher came in after every student that was going to show up for class arrived.

"All rise," Hikari ordered them. "Bow and sit."

"Good morning, class," the elderly man greeted. "Today, I've decided that we would be learning something different. Are any of you familiar with the animal known as the crow?"

Shinji, Asuka, Kensuke and Hikari all raised their hands.

"Well, there have been many myths and legends surrounding the avian creature," the teacher continued. "One of which is quite a remarkable story. People from ancient times had always believed that whenever a person dies, a crow carries their soul to the realm of the dead. Other times, those souls carried by crows are taken to a different place, one that is between the world of the living and the afterlife, where the restless souls taken are left to reside, burdened by the terrible weight of their sadness, their grief, which prohibits them from moving on. And so, they are made to wait, endlessly searching for a means to relieve themselves of their agony. Then, only for a small few, a crow could bring those restless souls back to life, only a short period, to set right the wrongs that led to their departure, to make amends with the people they were forced to leave behind, all in the hopes that, one day, they will be able to rejoin the ones they love. Some believe those brought back by the crow are blessed with the means to absolve themselves of their burdens left from when they were alive, while others believed that those brought back by the crow are tasked by a greater force that is beyond themselves, maybe the gods themselves, to reconnect with the lives they left behind. The crow is believed to be the inspiration behind many stories that border on the supernatural, things too great or too terrible for us to understand, like angels or demons. Another recent tale to the stories surrounding the bird is the premature passing of a young man and his little sister. The crow returned to life the boy in order to obtain justice, not only for himself and his sister, but for those that also suffered from their passing…and restore the bonds that had been severed."

Hikari and Shinji realized that the teacher was speaking of Toji and his sister, though he probably didn't know it.

"…The people brought back by the crow have been believed to be strengthened by the pain they have within themselves when they died," the teacher explained some more on the crow myths and legends, "but they possessed a source of strength greater than that of pain. That source is the love they felt for those before and after their deaths, as love is believed to be far stronger than any other emotion that has ever existed, even stronger than that of death."

Suddenly, the city's alarms that were reserved for the Angels whenever they were predicted to attack the city went off. Everyone seemed to notice that Shinji, Asuka and Rei got up and stepped out of the room to head to NERV HQ.

"…If the people we love are ever taken from us," the teacher continued, "then the only way we can truly keep them alive in our hearts is to never stop loving them. Sometimes, it takes a crow to show the way. Cities burn and fall, families and friends die, but true love and friendship are forever."

As the Eva pilots left the school building, a crow, which was perched atop a flagpole, looked down upon and then took to the sky.

A/N: What started over four years ago is now finished. Now that I took the time to finish this, I can finally enjoy knowing that others will look at it and let me know what they think of it. Another reason I had to write this story was after Toji was killed in the manga…and the manga ended the way it did, I was dissatisfied with how he was one of the people that was just forgotten about. Now that I've written this, I hope that others won't forget that there was a manga version of Toji Suzuhara, and that his life had been taken not by the Angels, but by Gendo Ikari and Ritsuko Akagi. Also, for people that don't understand much about those brought back by the mythical bird, it's not always about revenge, but about redemption, to be able to move on after obtaining absolution.


End file.
